Silicon Valley's China syndrome

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China's Teacher

In the late sixties and early seventies, the US government needed Aluminium to make airplanes and missiles to win the cold war. They made a long term contract with a certain developing island nation to gain exclusive access to their bauxite and Aliminia reserves.

As the seventies progressed and the fuel crisis arosed, they turned to recycling to reduce non fuel expenditures and reduce energy consumption, hence reduce fuel demand. The recycling program was so effective that they did not need as much buaxite/aluminia as they did before. WIth ten years left in their contract --the contract that they designed for their benefit-- they cut their purchases in half.

Facing the loss of income, the island searched for a buyer for their excess supplies and found one, the very one that the USofA did not want to get it when they devised this exclusive buyer deal, the very deal that they held this island nation to until they no longer needed all the ore and minerals they were producing.

The US then demanded that this island nation stop selling to "the enemy" and find another buyer. The supplier stated that the US was they have a buyer who refuses to honor the contract and that they have no "enemy" anywhere. The us insisted that if they do not stop selling to this "enemy' they will destroy the nation's economy. The nation said they would happily stop all such sales if the US would simply honor their contract.

Guess what happened. The Jamaican dollar was stronger thatn the US dollar at the start of the seventies. By the mid seventies it was much weaker. Not only did the US government destabilise the Jamaican economy but they also sent guns into the country to rebel forces to try and force the encumbent government out to stop the trade to the "enemy." When the encumbent was re-elected by a landslide, they sent more guns and started a propaganda campaign about communism take-over and deprivatisation of the entire private sector.

By 1980, the economy of Jamaica was in ruins and the encumbent party lost the elections by a landslide. The country was in dept up to its ears --a debt it never had before the mid-seventies-- unemployment was at its highest, violence and civil unrest was at its highest, and Jamaica still had no "enemies" except for the apartheid regiem of South Africa --which wasn't quite an "enemy" so much as they had no diplomatic, economic or ccultural exchange with the country.

Why did this happen again? Because the US used Jamaica when it was convienient and necessary for it, dumped them when they were through using them and crapped on them when their --the USofA's-- enemies were benefiting from them.

China had a good teacher.

Posted by: The King's Servant   Posted on: 02/08/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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